Cheltenham Borough Council workers take to the roads in electric vehicles

By Peter Davison

14 September 2022

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Council workers in Cheltenham will be taking to the road in two electric vehicles after joining the council-owned vehicle fleet at Ubico Ltd, Cheltenham Borough Council's environmental services partner.

The Toyota Proace City vans will be used by the council's Cheltenham Borough Council's and will support the borough council's goal of becoming net zero by 2030.

Since May this year, when different technology was introduced for the heavy goods vehicles to be driven in the most efficient way, the council's teams have reduced CO2 emissions by 9.455 tonnes, said the authority.

This is the equivalent of 156 tree seedlings grown for 10 years, capturing and storing atmospheric carbon dioxide.

Councillor Iain Dobie, member for waste, recycling and street services said: “I am really proud of our Ubico drivers and their support in reducing carbon emissions by this much in such a short space of time.

"I hope residents and businesses in Cheltenham will follow our example and think about alternative fuels for their vehicles to reduce carbon emissions too.”

The council is working towards replacing all vehicles in its fleet under 3.5 tonnes with electric as they become due for renewal and also the introduction of alternative fuels for the heavy goods vehicles on the fleet operated by Ubico.

By Peter Davison

Peter Davison is deputy editor of The Business Magazine. He has spent his life in journalism – doing work experience in newsrooms in and around Bristol while still at school, and landing his first job on a local newspaper aged 19. By 28 he was the youngest newspaper editor in the country.

An early advocate of online news, he spent the first years of the 2000s telling his bosses that the internet posed both the biggest opportunity and greatest threat to the newspaper industry and the art of journalism. He was right on both counts.

Since 2006 he has enjoyed a career as a freelance journalist. He lives in rural Wiltshire with one wife, two children, and three cats.